Archives for category: Common Core
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Mercedes Schneider: Whatever Happened to the Authors of the Common Core?

By dianeravitch
January 15, 2017 //
18

Mercedes Schneider wrote a book about the origins of the Common Core and probably knows more about it than almost anyone but David Coleman, its celebrated architect.

 

In this post, she reports on her search for Coleman’s group called Student Achievement Partners, which won millions to write the standards.

 

Coleman has gone on to lead the College Board, which is now embroiled in controversy because of Coleman’s effort to redesign the SAT. He is paid $750,000. A good gig.

 

Schneider will watch to see what happens to CCSS, PARCC, SBAC, and the rest of it in the Trump era. Trump made many pledges to get rid of the Common Core: “Believe me!” He said. And he appointed a Common Core adherent to run the US Department of Ed.

 

Categories Common Core

Common Core Advocate May Be DeVos’ Deputy

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2017 //
26

According to the Trump group’s favorite news media, businessman Allen B. Hubbard is the likely choice for the #2 job in the U.S. Department of Education. He is a strong advocate for school choice and for the Common Core.

 

He is on the board of the Lumina Foundation, which has made large grants to support implementation of Common Core.

 

Like DeVos, he is very wealthy.

 

So pmuch for Trump’s vow to eliminate Common Core.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Arne’s Education Ideas Are Now on the Ash Heap of History

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2017 //
49

Peter Greene reviews Arne Duncan’s bold effort to declare American public education a failure, to impose high-stakes testing on teachers everywhere, and to develop a test-based system of evaluation for teachers, students, administrators, and schools, all tied to national standards (the Common Core). In pursuit of his fancy, Duncan caused damage to real people: thousands of schools were called “failures,” thousands of teachers’ lives were ruined.

 

If you read my book “Reign of Error,” you will learn that reformers spun a Big Lie about “failing schools,” as an excuse for privatizing as many as they could. They pointed to an achievement gap between different groups and blamed it on schools and teachers, without bothering to demonstrate that their preferred alternative–charter schools–would have any effect on reducing those gaps.

 

In reviewing Duncan’s disappearing “legacy,” Greene offers a few words of consolation:

 

At this point I can feel a little bad for Duncan—he didn’t really accomplish any of his major goals, and the next administration is not even going to pay lip service to his efforts. It must be tough to feel like you really know a lot about how something works, but the people in power won’t even listen to you. It feels, in fact, a lot like being a teacher during Duncan’s tenure at the U.S. Department of Education.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Obama’s Top 50 Accomplishents Do Not Include Education

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2017 //
43

Compared to Trump, Obama is a portrait of dignity, reason, and intellect.  The Washington Monthly published a list of his top 50 accomplishments. Note that there is no mention of K-12 education. As readers of this blog  know, Obama’s education policies were a continuation of the George W. Bush policies of measure-and-punish. Arne Duncan did whatever Gates and Broad wanted. He advanced privatization by his constant promotion of charter schools and his refusal to demand accountability for them.  He demoralized teachers by insisting that they be evaluated by test scores of their students. He trumpeted the lie that our public schools are failing. He was an agent of the right wingers who want to replace public education with an array of bad choices. When unions were under attack in Wisconsin and in the courts, the Obama administration was not there. It collaborated in the destruction of the Democratic base.

 

This is too was Obama’s legacy: the assault on public schools, teachers, and unions.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Obama, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Peter Greene: How Donald Trump Betrayed Conservatives by Picking DeVos

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2017 //
14

Peter Greene writes that many conservative parents realize that Trump hoaxed them. He pandered to them by denouncing Common Core, but once he was elected, he picked a woman who was a strong supporter of Common Core. DeVos served on Jeb Bush’s board (Foundation for Educational Excellence), which advocated for school choice, technology, digital learning, and Common Core.

 

Trump won the Electoral College, but Jeb Bush won the U.S. Department of Education.

 

A conservative critic of Common Core quoted Betsy DeVos saying:

 

I do support high standards, strong accountability, and local control. When Governors such as John Engler, Mike Huckabee, and Mike Pence were driving the conversation on voluntary high standards driven by local voices, it all made sense.

 

The critic observed:

 

The first sentence contains the insidious, using-buzzwords-to-make-sure-I-get-everyone-from-every-ed-camp-into-mine, rhetorical nonsense. You simply can’t have “high standards” and “strong accountability” at the federal level and get LOCAL CONTROL. You just can’t. That sentence alone should be deadly in the confirmation hearings for Mrs. DeVos.

 

Greene concludes:

 

Bottom line: Senators should be hearing objections to DeVos from across the perspective, and when you are calling your senator (there is no if– you should be doing it, and soon, and often), you can take into account what sort of Senator you are calling. Your GOP senator needs to hear that DeVos’s nomination breaks Trump’s promise to attack Common Core and to get local control back to school districts. Your GOP senator needs to hear that you are not fooled by DeVos’s attempt to pretend she’s not a long-time Common Core supporter.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Common Core, Education Industry, Privatization

Questions for Billionaire Betsy DeVos on Her Confirmation Hearings on January 11

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2017 //
60

Senate committee hearings on the nomination of billionaire Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education are scheduled for January 11 in the Dirksen Office Building.

 

She has made campaign contributions to four members of the committee that will interview her, so it is likely that her approval is a foregone conclusion.

 

However, members of the committee of both parties should be prepared with good questions to draw out her experience, her background, her ideology, and her views.

 

Here are a few for members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to consider:

 

  1. Do you intend to pay the state of Ohio the $5.2 million that you owe for campaign finance violations?
  2. Are you aware of the widespread fraud and profiteering in the charter industry in Michigan?
  3. If you are Secretary of Education, what would you do to reduce fraud, waste and abuse in the charter industry?
  4. Why do you support cybercharters when research consistently shows that they deliver a substandard education, with low tests scores, high attrition, and low graduation rates?
  5. Why do you oppose regulation and oversight of charter schools?
  6. Do you believe that students who use public funds to go to religious schools should be subject to the same standards and tests as students  in public schools?
  7. Do you think that Thomas Jefferson was wrong when he recommended a separation of church and state?
  8. Should religious schools that accept public funding be required to hire certified teachers? If not, why not?
  9. Do you think that Detroit is a good model for the rest of the nation? It has more children in charter schools than public schools, and charter schools do not get better performance than public schools.
  10. Do you think that Milwaukee is a good model for the rest of the nation? It has vouchers, charter schools, and traditional public schools, yet is one of the lowest performing urban districts, only slightly ahead of Detroit, which is at the very bottom on NAEP.
  11. Do you know what NAEP is?
  12. What programs of the U.S. Department of Education are you planning to change?
  13. What is your knowledge of federal funding for higher education? How would you change it?
  14. What do you know about federal funding of students with special needs? How would you change it?
  15. About 85% of American students attend traditional public schools. Other than urging them to go to nonpublic schools, what ideas do you have to improve their schools?

 

Please suggest your questions.

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

Corporate Reformers Will Meet in Atlanta to Promote Privatization

By dianeravitch
December 19, 2016 //
13

Thanks to friends in Georgia who sent me the alert about a meeting planned in Atlanta for January 11-12, 2017.

 

It is billed as planning for the future for a radical transformation of Georgia education. Georgia voters just voted overwhelmingly to block the governor from taking control of their public schools and giving them to charter operators.

 

Nonetheless, consider the 2016 sponsors of this “radical” transformation:

 

The Walton Family Foundation

American Federation for Children (Betsy and Dick DeVos)

StudentsFirst

Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence

 

The corporate reformers never give up. No matter how many times the voters say no, they come back for more.

 

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Steven Singer: Don’t Be Fooled! Betsy DeVos Loves Common Core!

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2016 //
18

Steven Singer wants you to know the truth: No matter how much she denies it, Betsy DeVos really really loves Common Core!

 

He has the evidence to prove it.

 

She’s a board member of Jeb Bush’s pro-Common Core think tank, Foundation for Excellence in Education, where she hangs out with prominent Democratic education reformers like Bill Gates and Eli Broad. But she says that somehow doesn’t mean she likes it.

 

She founded, funds and serves on the board of the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP), an organization dedicated to the implementation and maintenance of Common Core. But somehow that doesn’t mean she’s for the standards.

 

She’s even spent millions lobbying politicians in her home state of Michigan asking them NOT to repeal Common Core. But somehow that doesn’t mean she’s in favor of it.

 

It must be a hard position to be in.

 

Her entire nomination for Trump’s cabinet is contingent on convincing the public that she hates this thing that he explicitly campaigned against but she favored.

 

Rarely has an education policy been such a political hot potato as Common Core. Typically Republicans hate it and Democrats love it. However, little of this has to with its actual merits – or lack thereof.

 

Common Core is a set of academic standards saying what students should know in each grade. Nonetheless, these standards are deeply unpopular with teachers, students, parents and the general public. Part of this stems from the undemocratic way state legislatures were bribed to enact them by the Obama administration in many cases before they were even done being written and often circumventing the voting process altogether. Other criticisms come from the way the standards were devised almost entirely by standardized test corporations without input from experts in the field like child psychologists and classroom teachers. Finally, the standards get condemnation for what they do to actual classrooms – narrowing the curriculum, promoting excessive test prep, increased paperwork, the purchase of new text and work books and requiring new and more unfair standardized assessments.

 

As a Republican, DeVos must do everything she can to distance herself from this policy.

 

It’s just that her history of advocating for it gets in the way.

 

Every statement that Singer makes is documented in links. And the story is longer than what is quoted here. Open and see his stunning graphics and read the rest of the post.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bush, Jeb, Common Core, Education Reform

Has Trump Outsourced the Department of Education to Jeb Bush?

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2016 //
22

The U.S. Department of Education, in the Trump regime, is starting to look like a Jeb Bush sweep.

 

Betsy DeVos was on the board of Jeb’s Foundation for Education Excellence, which is noted for its advocacy for vouchers, charter schools, digital learning, and high-stakes testing.

 

Hanna Skandera, State Superintendent in New Mexico, worked for Jeb Bush, was a member and chair of Jeb’s Chiefs for Change, and is a supporter of Common Core (and president of the PARCC consortium).

 

Now Politico reports that Paul Pastorek of Louisiana, also a member of Jeb’s Chiefs for Change, is under consideration for the ED Department’s general counsel. Pastorek was a leader and cheerleader for the complete privatization of the public schools in New Orleans.

 

As superintendent [of Louisiana] from 2007 to 2011, he helped oversee the rebuilding of New Orleans schools after Hurricane Katrina. He has held a number of education reform leadership positions, serving as co-executive director of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, for example. Pastorek helped found the PARCC consortium and he’s chairman of PARCC Inc.’s board of directors.

 

In other words, Trump has forgotten that he promised to eliminate Common Core (which he can’t do unless the states want to do it.) He said repeatedly that Common Core is a “disaster.” But all of his likely top appointments are Common Core advocates, like Jeb Bush.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Orleans, Privatization, Testing, Trump

Peter Greene: A Rare Occasion When Reformers Admit Defeat

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2016 //
8

Peter Greene listened to a podcast produced by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and made a shocking discovery: One of the leading figures of the reform movement–Checker Finn–acknowledged that after 20 years of reform, there was no change!

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing
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